Just two days after recently filed court documents revealed accusations of a decades-old relationship between MLB hit king Pete Rose and an unnamed underage women in Ohio, the Phillies have decided to cancel Rose's Wall of Fame induction ceremony, originally scheduled for next weekend.
The Phillies released the following statement on Wednesday morning:
No word yet on the fate of thousands of Pete Rose bobbleheads that were set to be handed out to fans prior to the game.
UPDATE
We now know what awaits those 35,000 bobbleheads and it ain't pretty.
According to those court documents, which were filed Monday by former MLB investigator and defendant in a defamation lawsuit from Rose after he went on a West Chester radio show and accused the former All-Star of having relationships with underage girls team. On Monday, Rose acknowledged having a relationship with the woman in question but said he was led to believe that she was already 16 when it began.
Either way, legal consequences for Rose seem unlikely given the amount of time that has passed since the alleged crime.
Here's more from ESPN's original report on the latest allegations:
Rose acknowledged he had a sexual relationship with the woman in court documents made public Monday, but he said his information and belief was that it started when she was 16. He was 34, married and the father of two children in 1975, when he says he began having sex with the woman, referred to in the filing as "Jane Doe." Rose said he does not recall how long the relationship lasted.
The woman's account does not raise the prospect of a criminal charge for Rose, as it is well past Ohio's statute of limitations. She said they also had sex outside of Ohio when she was 16 or younger, but didn't specify the states, and Rose said their sexual relationship was confined to Ohio. In some states, such as Florida, the legal age of consent is 18. [espn.com]
This is not the first time Rose has been accused of such a thing, according to the report, the filing also includes references to a pair of journalists accusing Rose of having inappropriate (and illegal) relationships with underage women, one in a bio of Rose and the other in an ESPN documentary.
So while the Phillies were able to overlook the fact that Rose bet on baseball – unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame, which continues to deny enshrinement to one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game – it seems these latest revelations were enough to make the team once again distance itself from one of the key contributors to their 1980 World Series title team.
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